PART IV: Presidential Office 4.1First Months in the Office

4PART IV: Presidential Office

4.1First Months in the Office

Kennedy was not hostile to the situation of black minority; however, apart from the escalating tension at the international political scene, there was the issue of strong Southern influence in the Congress. Kennedy was aware of the fact that there was a very slight chance that new civil rights legislation might be passed in 1961 because Southerners held key positions⁴² in the House and the Senate. Schwab suggests that “almost all Southern Congressmen could be counted on to oppose any program which benefited blacks” (141). Although Kennedy administration did not propose any strong legislation regarding civil rights, they pursued the desegregation in federal employment practice. Kennedy appointed African Americans to new government positions. “During his first two months in office he selected ... forty Negroes for important posts” (Brauer 68). The most notable was the appointment of Thurgood Marshall (who was famous for advocating civil rights at the Supreme Court, especially in Brown v. Board of Education) to the Second Circuit Court of Appeals in New York (ibid. 69).

“He also enlarged and strengthened the implementation and enforcement powers of the Equal Employment Opportunities Committee...⁴³ which covered 20 million federal employees” (Silvestri 244). The act regarding desegregation in housing was postponed because Kennedy knew that he could not turn Southern delegates against himself because he needed them in order to enforce other policies. ”Kennedy clearly aimed to win Southern Democratic support for his legislative program” (Brauer 87).

Schwab suggests that “during Kennedy Administration the black rebellion of the 1960’s came into its own.”⁴⁴ The Civil Rights Movement was certainly intensifying and due to the advancement of modern media it was also largely publicized. The President and his aides wanted to avoid any direct confrontations because confrontations regarding racial discrimination usually attracted a lot of attention not only inside the USA but also worldwide. During his campaign Kennedy criticized Eisenhower for lack of action with regard to racial discrimination in federally aided housing and stated that if elected, he would do so “by a stroke of pen” (“Stroke of the pen” par.1). When the civil rights supporters saw that the President did not pursue any new housing legislation, they started to send pens to the White House to remind Kennedy of his promise.

4.2Discrimination against African Diplomats

The fact that discrimination was present at all spheres of life was proved in the spring of 1961 by an affair regarding discrimination in public accommodation in Charleston, South Carolina, where black members of National Civil War Commission were denied the hotel services on the basis of the color of their skin. Southern delegates strongly criticized Kennedy for “unauthorized intrusion into the actions of a privately owned hotel” after the President contacted General Ulysses S. Grant III in order to request “equal treatment for all commission members” (Dallek, Unfinished Life 382). The authorities could not force any hotel to integrate; therefore they decided to arrange a different place for the banquet – at the US naval base outside Charleston. The Southerners liked to point out that even though the President called for desegregation, the Navy still segregated the personnel. This incident clearly demonstrates that segregation and discriminatory practices were still widely used a hundred years after the Emancipation Proclamation.

The difficulties regarding public accommodation and restaurants were also frequently experienced by African diplomats. The year of 1960, when Kennedy was elected, is often referred to as “the Year of Africa” (Dudziak 153). Former colonies were becoming independent states – “between January and November of that year, seventeen African nations achieved independence” (ibid.). With the increasing number of newly independent countries, the number of African diplomats in the USA also increased and they often encountered discriminatory practices in housing and public accommodation.

The racial discrimination in the USA might have had great influence on the relationships of the USA with newly independent nations in Africa. Especially when tensions with Soviet Union were increasing, the USA needed support of the newly emerging countries, as well as, within the United Nations. Kennedy was concerned about the image of the USA during official visits of African diplomats. Bryant acknowledges that Kennedy “ordered an investigation after a presidential honor guard for the visit of Ghanaian President Kwame Nkrumah included only three black soldiers” (212). The administration initiated “a highly organized and partially successful drive to desegregate” public places in certain states (Maryland, Virginia) in which the diplomats often traveled (Holder 32). Angier Biddle Duke, chief of the Protocol, proposed the creation of a special section – New Nations Division – with the responsibility to “help foreign African diplomats in Washington – and to prevent incidents that would provoke ill will” against the USA (ibid. 33).

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